July 17, 2009

The Morning Wrap

Calling it a Wrap: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor wrapped up taking questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and senators on both sides of the aisle praised her demeanor and thoughtfulness, reports The National Law Journal.
NLJ's Tony Mauro reports that confirmation is a sure bet since GOP senators pledged not to filibuster the nomination. Click here for The Washington Post analysis.

Outside Counsel to the Rescue: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Miguel Estrada is working with John Yoo, author of some of the Bush administration's war-on-terror memos, to appeal a ruling that allowed a detainee's suit against Yoo to proceed, reports The Recorder via law.com. The Justice Department, which has represented Yoo in the suit, announced in a recent court filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that the department is stepping aside. Justice will still pay for Yoo's defense. Yoo's also making news himself. Yoo has this op-ed in The Wall Street Journal where he makes the case why government officials under the Bush administration endorsed warrantless wiretaps post-Sept. 11.

Judge's Defamation Suit Narrowed: The Manhattan Supreme Court has tossed a judge's defamation suit against an attorney but ruled that a defamation claim against the New York Daily News and one of the paper's columnists can move forward, The New York Law Journal reports. The Brooklyn, N.Y., judge filed the $10 million defamation suit against the lawyer for allegedly telling the columnist that the judge improperly presided over a case involving a lawyer who represented the judge before the judicial conduct commission.

Falling Down Drunk: A jury in Philadelphia has sided in favor of two airlines that were accused of failing to prevent a drunken patron from falling down at the airport, an incident that led to a brain injury and the man's death, The Legal Intelligencerreports. The jury found Southwest Airlines was not negligent under provisions of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Continental Airlines was found only 26 percent negligent for the airline's interaction with the man before his fall.